Plant Life Cycles

Learning Goals

During this session, you will have an opportunity to build understandings
to help you:

Describe the stages in the life cycle of a flowering plant

Compare the
plant and animal life cycles

Video Overview

Which life forms reproduce at a distance, give rise to offspring
miles away and even after death, trick other living things into
helping them reproduce, and encourage predators to eat their young
as part
of their life cycle? Plants! During Session 4, we’ll continue
our study of life cycles by focusing on the Plant kingdom, using
flowering plants as our examples. During this session, you’ll
have a chance to see how different the life cycles of plants are
from those of animals–as
well as how similar.

Video Outline

Our study of plant life cycles begins with the obvious: seeds!
Nancy Landes, representing Science T.R.A.C.S. from the Biological
Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS), tells us of research findings
on children’s
ideas, which indicate that children often think that seeds aren’t
alive. The question “What will it become?” helps launch
children into an exploration of life cycles. Our Science Studio
children tackle this question as they discuss different plant life
stages.

During this session, we hear from several guests. Dan
Cousins,
the head grower at a large nursery, focuses on the role of seeds
in
plant reproduction. As we move to an exploration of flowers, Dr.
Dan Scheirer, a forensic botanist, shares his understandings of
the role
of pollen. Dr. Judith Sumner, who researches the role of plants
in human culture, describes an intriguing feature of plant life
cycles: alternation of generations. She also highlights the challenges
that
plants face in reproduction–pollinationanddispersal–and
how flowers and fruits have evolved to provide some solutions.

We
return to Lakewood, Colorado, to visit Sally
Florkiewicz’s
third-grade class as they investigate plant life cycles with
Science T.R.A.C.S. They’re at a point where the question “Where
do seeds come from?” finds them forming hypotheses to be tested
later as the plants they are observing complete their life cycles.
Finally, Dr. Paul Williams gives us a peek at events taking place
in our Bottle Biology systems, including
butterflies that have emerged from chrysalises to become partners
in completing the life cycle of a plant.